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The Current Transcript for June 1, 2020

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: theme]

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[Sounds from US protests]

MATT GALLOWAY: America is on edge with cities across the country facing protests in the wake of the death of George Floyd at the knee of Minneapolis police.

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[Sounds from US protests including crowd chanting George Floyd]

MG: From Los Angeles to the White House, Toronto to Halifax, people are taking to the streets proclaiming Black Lives Matter. But in some cities, including Montreal, what started as peaceful demonstrations have quickly escalated.

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VOICE 1: There were rumours about violent protests in Atlanta. I did what a mother would do. I called my son and I said, Where are you? I cannot protect you and black boys shouldn't be out today.

VOICE 2: We were behind the barricades. We weren't throwing anything. We weren't being violent. They tore down the barricade and they started hitting us with mace guns. We deserve the right to protest, you know. We deserve to be heard. We can't be muted anymore. Black lives matter.

MG: As tensions rise, a look this morning at the increasingly urgent calls for justice in the United States and here in Canada. Also this morning, how social media companies are policing content in this tense moment from the president on down. Plus, your letters on life in long term care and how Canada can address this crisis. We begin though on the streets here and south of the border where after a long, hard week, frustration with the state of race relations has boiled over. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current.

U.S. activists weigh in on what’s happening across America as protests continue

Guests: Kandace Montgomery, Eric Russell, Ibram X. Kendi

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VOICE: We cannot look at this as an isolated incident. The reason why buildings are burning are not just for our brother, George Floyd. They're burning down because people here in Minnesota are saying to people in New York, to people in California, to people in Memphis, to people all across this nation, enough is enough.

MG: Enough is enough. That's the activist Tamika Mallory who gave a powerful speech at the Minnesota state capital over the weekend as protests continued on the streets of Minneapolis. They were sparked by the death of George Floyd. He died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for close to nine minutes. That officer, Derek Chauvin, was fired and is now facing third degree murder and second degree manslaughter charges. The other three officers on the scene are being investigated. Protests tore through the United States for a sixth day. More than 40 cities had curfews set, which were largely ignored. In Washington, the U.S. president, Donald Trump, was briefly taken to an emergency bunker as protesters set fires close to the White House. But he continued his combative tweets saying, amongst other things, that Antifa would be designated as a terrorist organisation. In Canada, there were protests from Toronto to Montreal, Calgary to Vancouver, both in solidarity with the U.S. movement, but also in light of the death in Toronto of Regis Korchinski-Paquette, which is being investigated by the province's Special Investigations Unit. Kandace Montgomery is director of Black Visions. It is a black, trans and queer led social justice organization. It's based in Minneapolis. Kandace, good morning.

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Hi. Good morning. Thanks for having me.

MG: Thanks for joining us. What is your city like this morning?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Yeah. The city is still, you know, coming up from last night. And yeah and I'm not quite sure what it all looks like out there yet. It feels like a little bit more quiet than other mornings.

MG: How would you describe what these protests over the weekend were like?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: The protests over the weekend have really been a demonstration of our community's righteous rage, dealing with the terror and violence of the policing system for over 400 years. And so they have primarily been peaceful, especially during the day. I really want folks to know about the amazing amount of community care from frontline medics to cleanup crews to peaceful protest being led by young black and brown folks, as well as an escalated uprising all across our city each day and night.

MG: What happens in the evenings? You mentioned in the daytime, the peaceful protests. What happens when the sun goes down?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, a lot of people are seeing what is happening. It's a variety of things. Obviously, there are folks who are escalating and you know, what we're seeing in particular is the escalation of the National Guard and the police folks being mased or teargassed, pretty much unprovoked, experiencing rubber bullets. So it does get really scary and definitely gets escalatory. And much of that violence is actually coming from the police and the National Guard.

MG: You use the phrase righteous rage. How would you describe your mood and the mood of people in your community over the last few days as this has grown from the death of one man in in your city to, as you mentioned, protests that are spreading across the United States, through Canada, through Europe as well.

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Yeah, absolutely. The reason I call it righteous rage is, again, because of this is a rage that's coming from incidents well before George Floyd, cause before George, there Jamal Clark right here in our area and we know that that there are many names before that. And so folks have been really just demanding for justice beyond the arrest. Folks are demanding for defunding of the police and won't stop until they get that.

MG: People are looking for leadership and wondering where that leadership is going to come from. The governor of your state, Tim Walz spoke on Friday in St. Paul. Listen to what the governor said.

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VOICE: Lieutenant Governor Flanagan and I have tried to make equity the centre of everything we've done, but obviously in Minneapolis on Monday night, there wasn't a lot of equity for George Floyd. And that's on us, us as Minnesotans, us as the governor and the team that works with me to put the things in order to establish order in our streets to establish and rebuild trust in our communities. To lift those voices up to be heard. Not pleading for their lives, but demanding the changes necessary so no one else is put into that position.

MG: Kandace Montgomery, what do you make of the response from politicians in Minnesota and across this country?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: I appreciate the words of the governor, but I think that it's not enough. Way too late. The response from elected officials all across the state and especially in the city has been minimal. And it's disappointing to see the ways that our politicians are hesitating to actually demand justice and keep Minneapolis Police Department from murdering more black people. We have been calling for justice well before people came into the streets, well before fires and anything like that were lit. We have been peacefully protesting, talking to them in their offices, providing policy solutions. And now they are acting like they're lost on what to do when we have been for several years giving them concrete solutions on ways to divest from the violent policing system and actually invest in community led safety solutions. And so for our politicians, we need more concrete solutions. We need commitment to visionary leadership.

MG: I was going to say, when you talk about defunding the police and divesting from police, Where would that money go? The money that that is now going into police services?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like most countries, like most cities around the country, the city of Minneapolis is sinking way too much money into policing while scrapping together pennies for the resources that really keep our community safe. And so, like just this year, the Minneapolis police about budget is $193 million. And that's actually more than our city spends on affordable housing, health, violence prevention, civil rights and rencher protection combined. And so when we're talking about community led safety solutions, we're talking about alternatives to policing, to address harm, to address interpersonal violence directly, but we're also talking about the ways in which we need to make critical investments in the things that we know keep folks safe. George Floyd died because the cops were called on him for $20. That's a crime of poverty and we need to look at the real roots of what is keeping folks safe. When people have housing, when people have jobs, when people have health care, we're able to see a much safer and healthier community. And that is what we're calling for in addition to concrete alternatives to policing.

MG: These protests have spread across the country. I want to bring Eric Russell into this conversation. He was at the protests in Chicago where the National Guard was brought in yesterday. Eric is the executive director of the Tree of Life Justice League. It's an advocacy organization that works with those who've been impacted by police brutality. Eric. Good morning to you.

ERIC RUSSELL: Good morning Matt. Good morning Kandace.

MG: What was your weekend like in Chicago?

ERIC RUSSELL: It was very tense. You can probably hear my voice is very hoarse and our peaceful protests were absolutely brutalized by the National Guard, state troopers and local police. So right now here in Chicago, we're sort of galvanizing because at the Tree of Life Justice League, we have a very strong civil and criminal team. And so now we have to get our freedom fighters and our protesters out of jail this morning. We're hearing here in Chicago we approximately have 108 arrests. And so we have to discern, which one of our people, meaning the peaceful protesters, are now in custody.

MG: Does this moment feel different to you, Eric, than protests in past? Kandace was referring to the, you know, the long list of of of black men and women who have been killed at the hands of police. Does this moment feel different to you?

ERIC RUSSELL: It feels different for us here in Chicago because this actually has intensified our beautiful struggle because here in Chicago we're absolutely, we have absolutely more outrage because we have had some success here in Chicago as it relates to holding racist killer cops accountable. With the recent conviction a couple of years ago, Jason Van Dyke, who murdered Laquan MacDonald with 16 shots and a cover up. And three months ago, we sent a cop to jail here in Chicago for the murder of Jose N. who was murdered as a result of a verbal altercation that escalated and he was unarmed. So because of that success and our righteous struggle and the fact that Chicago is currently under a consent, a federal consent decree, here in Chicago, we're even more outraged.

MG: There have been these protests that have been peaceful in many cities. There have been concerns about whether those peaceful protests are spilling into something else. And people asking about the violence that perhaps has followed some of those peaceful demonstrations. On the weekend, the rapper Killer Mike, who is the son of a police officer in Atlanta, made this plea to protesters in his city and it got attention all around the world. Have a listen to what would Killer Mike said.

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VOICE: It is your duty not to burn your own house down for anger with an enemy. It is your duty to fortify your own house so that you may be a house of refuge in times of organization. And now is the time to plot, plan, strategize, organize and mobilize. It is time to beat up prosecutors you don't like at the voting booth.

MG: Kandace Montgomery, what do you make of that argument? That instead of violence or looting, this should be a matter for the voting booth?

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: I think that it is not our call to tell our communities how to grieve. I think that we have a right to to be able to grieve how we want. And I would say that I think to oftentimes black people are in this moment getting blamed for acts that are not actually happening. We are not burning down our own communities and that is really a false statement. And we've relied on trying to get justice through the voting, just through the voting box for too long. This is not a tactic that we haven't also been raising, but that is taking too long and we need that justice now. And so I appreciate the sentiment, but I think that it's really a narrow critique and it lacks a fuller political analysis of what's actually necessary to divest from a violent policing infrastructure and be able to truly invest in community control and transformative justice.

MG: Eric Russell, does that argument of, you know, if you want change, vote for change and that's where change is going to come? Does that argument hold water right now?

ERIC RUSSELL: No, no, no, not at all. You know, the fact of the matter is, is that we have black people, we must get away from community blaming and victim shaming. One thing I tried not to address the violence too much because it takes away from our message. The fact of the matter is today that police nationally here in America are on a hunt and black and brown men are the prey. This brutality is really tantamount to modern day lynching. So when I hear someone, you know, give an overview and like our dear sister said, tell someone how to grieve because at the Tree of Life Justice League, we represent a lot of families nationwide and everybody grieves differently. And so when I hear statements like that, because people must understand most of the violence is really being escalated by the police. And there are outside agitators that are also a part of the protest thing.

MG: What do you mean outside agitators?

ERIC RUSSELL: When I say outside, here in Chicago, we have Alt Right. Because here in Chicago sometimes in some of our protests, 60 percent of the crowd can be white people. And everybody that's standing next to you isn't necessarily a part of our beautiful struggle. They're looking, we have Alt Right. We have militia people. We have people with insidious intent. We have drug cartels and we have smash and grab things. And a lot of these people who show up at rallies, you know are up to no good. And they are not about police reform, transparency and accountability.

MG: It's good to speak with you both. Stay safe and perhaps we'll talk again. It feels like this is going to be a long conversation. Thank you.

ERIC RUSSELL: Thank you.

KANDACE MONTGOMERY: Thank you so much.

MG: Kandace Montgomery is director of Black Visions in Minneapolis. Eric Russell is the executive director of the Tree of Life Justice League in Chicago. Ibram X. Kendi is the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. He's the author of several books, including How to Be an Anti-racist. He's in Washington, D.C. this morning. Ibram X. Kendi, good morning to you.

IBRAM X. KENDI: Good morning.

MG: How are you processing what's been happening over the last several days in your country?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, I mean, I think a lot of people are, I'm feeling, I think, what a lot of people are feeling. You know, pain, mourning, rage, confusion, clarity and desire for immediate change. And so I feel like I feel what many people are feeling.

MG: When you see the protests spread from one city in Minneapolis to many cities across the United States, across here in Canada, through Europe, what's going through your mind?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, first and foremost, people who are victims of police brutality or violence or racial profiling or mass incarceration or racism in general in one city are inspired to demonstrate and protest against those ills in another city. This is a national problem. Obviously, this exploded in Minneapolis, but, you know, people are facing police violence and brutality and inequality all over this country. And people are saying obviously enough.

MG: Does, we were just talking about the complexion of those demonstrations. When things are peaceful, people will gather in a way that's different than perhaps when the sun sets and some violence erupts in some cities. And we're seeing that in the United States. We saw that here in Canada as well, in the city of Montreal last night. There's a narrative that that distracts from the purpose of the demonstration. That if people are violent, that if fires are set, if looting occurs, that that takes away from the goal of the protests. Do you align with that? Do you agree with that?

IBRAM X. KENDI: To me, that is a political line that typically politicians have utilized because they feel it's their job to maintain order or what they consider to be order. But what we do know is that when you look at the long short of deray, of American history and even modern history, we can't and I'm speaking as, you know, not as an advocate of non-violence or violence, but as an historian, you can't really pinpoint that a specific type of strategy has always won and a particular, another type of strategy has always failed. What we also know is that there was an immediate policy response in city after city to violence against property. And there was not an immediate policy response to violence against people, to police violence against people. And that contradiction I think is only sort of inflaming the resistance.

MG: The other element of this is the people who are telling the story are being targeted as well. And journalists are being targeted by police. What does that tell you?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Well I mean I think that that tells you or that tells me that the violence from police is in many ways indiscriminate. And I think it's critical for us to recognize that, you know, it was police violence that then led to these demonstrations and then these demonstrations were then leading to police violence. And so it's this sort of vicious cycle that I think is causing many Americans and many people over the world to realize just how insidious police violence is. And the reason why it's insidious is because police are trained, are supposed to be trained to show restraint. They're supposed to be trained to protect and serve. They should never be accelerating any sort of violence.

MG: I want to ask you about the political response to this and whether, as we were just discussing, voting is the way to try and create real change. Stick around, will you?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Sure.

MG: Ibram X. Kendi is research policy analyst at the Antiracist Research Policy Center at American University. He's the author of several books, including How to Be an Anti-racist. He will continue to speak with us coming up after the break. We're back in about six minutes time. We'll also turn our attention to the protests here in Canada. There was a huge protest in Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax and in Montreal last night as well. That's on its way. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio One. We're back in six minutes. Stay with us.

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current.

[Music: theme]

MG: Still to come, Canadians protested this weekend too for justice for George Floyd and against racism faced by black and indigenous Canadians. We'll hear about that, coming up in just a moment. But first, back to the United States and why not being racist is not enough.

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MG: Before the CBC News, we were speaking about the protests sparked in the United States by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Ibram X. Kendi is the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University. He's the author of several books, including How to Be an Anti-racist. We reached him in Washington, D.C. We've been talking about leadership in the United States and there has been a range of responses from politicians. Have a listen to what Democrat Joe Biden had to say on Friday.

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VOICE: With our complacency or silence, we are complicit in perpetuating these cycles of violence. Nothing about this will be easy or comfortable, but if we simply allow this wound to scab over once more without treating underlying injury, we'll never truly heal. The very soul of America is at stake.

MG: That's Joe Biden. Then you have President Trump.

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VOICE: What we are now seeing on the streets of our cities has nothing to do with justice or with peace. The memory of George Floyd is being dishonoured by rioters, looters and anarchists. We cannot and must not allow a small group of criminals and vandals to wreck our cities and lay waste to our communities. My administration will stop mob violence and we'll stop it cold.

MG: Ibram X. Keni, what do you think of your country's leadership during this crisis?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, I think that that is, those two clips are really of a reflection of, in many ways, two different realities and two different responses to two different realities. And so I think that obviously leadership is based on an awareness of reality and a willingness to have coverage to build a different and better reality. And so I think that we're deeply divided in the United States over what the problem or who the problem is. And I think that's then leading to a different, you know, all these various types of leadership.

MG: What do people want from leaders in this moment, do you think?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, I know as a young black male who is someone who fears the police, I'd prefer to just not fear the police. And I'd prefer to not fear that I could be killed by the police or by white terrorists as I ran down the street in Georgia. I'd prefer for there to not be racial disparities. And the way in which we eliminate those fears, the way in which we eliminate those disparities is through policy change. And if you're an elected official who has the power to change policy, you know, I don't really want to hear much from any of them other than what anti-racist policies are they putting in place that ensures life, that ensures health during a pandemic, that ensures equity and justice.

MG: You say and you've written about this extensively and spoken about it obviously, that it's not enough to be not racist, that you have to be actively anti-racist. And so what does that mean? In the response to the death of George Floyd, what does an anti-racist response look like?

IBRAM X. KENDI: An anti-racist response, first and foremost, does not blame George Floyd, does not blame black people who disproportionately die of police violence, and instead they don't say that black people are being reckless with the police. And they say all people, all racial groups, you know, are reckless and non-reckless, but black people are dying at greater rates because there's something wrong or there's something, there's a problem within our policing forces. And so, therefore, to be anti-racis is to figure out, OK, what policies, even what racist ideas are causing so much violence against black people. And then how can I go about being part of a campaign, being a part of a larger movement to transform those policies, to ensure that police officers view black lives as lives that matter?

MG: In this moment, are you seeing that? Are you seeing a move towards not just being not racist, but a move towards anti-racist behaviour?

IBRAM X. KENDI: Well, I mean, there certainly is many Americans who, you know, what happened to George Floyd also happened on the very day that there was the incident in Central Park in which a white woman who was was threatening a black male then called up the police and projected her as being, her life is being threatened by a black male. And then when she was questioned on her racist act, said, I'm not racist. I think that was a huge lesson for many Americans because they began to see that to say you are not racist is to deny your racism. That you're either being racist or anti-racist at all times and it was critical for Amy Cooper to admit that she was being racist in that moment. And we have this searing problem of racist denial in the United States.

MG: Are you confident that in this moment, which has convulsed your nation and, you know, as I said, there's protests that are happening all around the world right now, that that is a moment to embrace anti-racist behaviour?

IBRAM X. KENDI: That is my hope, because, you know, either we either we continue to believe that black people are more violent, black people are more dangerous, black people commit more crimes, there's something wrong with black people or we realize that the fundamental problem is not these people and it's policy and it's power. And we change those policies and powers. And if we don't change those policies and those people in positions of power, then what happened to George Floyd and Breonna Taylor will continue to happen. There's nothing wrong with black people. There's nothing wrong with any racial group, but there's everything wrong with racist power and policy and I'm hoping people recognize that from an anti-racist perspective.

MG: Ibram X. Kendi, it's great to speak to you. Thank you.

IBRAM X. KENDI: You're welcome. Thank you.

MG: Ibram X. Kendi is the founding director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University and the author of the book, How to be an Anti-racist. Keedron Bryant is a 12-year-old gospel singer in the United States. His song about the death of George Floyd has struck a chord with many of the protesters out on the streets this weekend.

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[Song by Keedron Bryant]

Police brutality continually treated like a 'one-off' in Canada, says Desmond Cole

Guests: Desmond Cole, Myra Tait

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. My name's Matt Galloway. Racism is obviously not an issue confined to south of the border.

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VOICE: Anti-black racism, racism is real. It's in the United States, but it's also in Canada. And we know people are facing systemic discrimination, unconscious bias and anti-black racism every single day. We need as a society to stand together, stand up against discrimination, be there for each other and respect, but also understand that we have work to do as well in Canada.

MG: Over the weekend, Canadians marched in various provinces from Vancouver to Halifax. In Montreal, a peaceful rally was followed by a small group smashing windows and setting fires. The police ended up firing tear gas back at those protesters. In Toronto, thousands of people came out to march peacefully against racism and police violence on Saturday. Desmond Cole was there. He is a Toronto journalist and activist and the author of the book The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. Desmond Cole, good morning to you.

DESMOND COLE: Good morning, Matt.

MG: What was it like to be part of that march on Saturday?

DESMOND COLE: It was a difficult but powerful moment to be outside during a global pandemic with people who recognize that that was a risk, but that there was also a risk in staying inside and sitting at home when black people continue to die in interactions in this country and in the city with the police. So a pretty unknown, I think, to Toronto, a group called Not Another Black Life. A group of mostly young black women. They organized that protest. And I echo what Yusra said about it. She said, you know, they did the best they could with the resources that they had. And there were thousands of people out expressing their outrage and I think that that was really important.

MG: Of the many, many chants and signs that were there, one of the most powerful and dominant was Justice for Regis. Tell us about Regis.

DESMOND COLE: Regis Korchinski-Paquet died on Wednesday evening after interaction with the police that we don't have a lot of details about. I went to the scene on Wednesday night, and Matt, something that's really bothering me that I'm not seeing reported. I arrived at the scene in High Park of her rise that she fell 24 stories from. I arrived almost five hours after the police responded. And whatever happened there happened. Regis's body was still on the ground underneath a tarp in a body bag. Five hours. And when I see how much we're focusing on how bad things are in the United States, I also see how a very basic detail of reporting like that goes unmentioned because we're looking for the sensational somewhere else. And for me, this is such a mundane but clear example of anti-blackness that's not about what the police did, but how the response happened afterwards.

MG: This is an incident that is being investigated by the Special Investigations Unit because police were there. Her family was not in the unit. Police were there. And there are many, many questions about what happened in that interaction. How would you describe, we're talking about what's going on in the United States with George Floyd, how would you describe the relations between police and black communities in this country?

DESMOND COLE: I'm really tired of using the term relationship as though these are two equal parties. The black community is not an equal party to the state sponsored police force. We are under subjugation to the state sponsored police force. And there are so many different ways that that's happening that there isn't even enough time in this segment. But in Toronto, this situation with Regis Korchinski-Paquet of her falling off of this balcony after an interaction with the police might seem strange or rare to people, but there are so many instances just in the last year or two in Ontario of people hearing a knock on the door. Police. It's police. It's police. And then that person ends up on the ground dead. No charges against the officer. Someone has a warrant for breaching probation. Police come and knock on their door. They're found dead at the bottom of an apartment building. This is happening in Ontario all the time. But we're not focused on accountability for the police, we're focused on clearing the police and saying it wasn't their fault. And so black people, people on low incomes, living in some of these high rise apartment buildings, people who may be in crisis, we are all falling victims to police brutality and it's being treated every time like a one off and it's very insulting to see that.

MG: The last time you were here on the program in January, you were talking about your book. And in the book you talk about the call for defunding the police. Kandace Montgomery in Minneapolis was making the same argument, saying that money is going to the police where it could be going to organizations that would better protect the community. What would that idea of defunding the police achieve?

DESMOND COLE: It would stop police from killing people. I think that the way to stop violence is to go to the source. The police are the source of the violence. And we've been hearing that on your show today over and over from black people who are trying to remind everybody that this is happening because police are violent. Policing is violence. It's legalized right to use as much force as you want up to taking someone's life and then there being no legal consequences. So, Matt, if I keep hitting you with a stick, hitting you with a stick, hitting you with a stick, you can put a camera on me to monitor how I hit you with the stick, but that's not going to stop me from hitting you. You can retrain me that hitting people with a stick os wrong as if I don't already know that or you can just take the damn stick away from me. We have to disarm and defund the police. And what's been really frustrating for me to see is that other people in this country, Sandy Hudson, we've been trying to get on radio shows when Minneapolis was burning to talk about police defunding, to talk about other issues that have to do with transforming violence into services and support for black people. And everybody says, oh, we're just here to talk about Minneapolis right now. So if Minneapolis hadn't burned, would we be having this conversation about Toronto? I doubt it. And that's what's wrong with the way that our media is covering these issues.

MG: What are the hard conversations then? I mean, if it's about the police or if it's about not just looking south of the border, but having the gut check here, what are the uncomfortable conversations that we need to have now?

DESMOND COLE: We'll be uncomfortable conversation is that white folks are benefitting from this violence because the police are here to protect white people and their property. That's actually what the police have always done on this stolen indigenous territory. So what we want to pretend is at some points, racism is like, you know, an individual. It's a bad actor or maybe in some broader cases, you know, there might be a problem inside of a particular institution. When police get paid $110,000 a year in Toronto to police poor neighbourhoods, the money stays with them and their family and gets deprived from the community. And in fact, they can even inflict more violence and take more away from black communities and they're getting paid in the same way that if we go outside of policing, there are indigenous children in child welfare today, just like there was a 60s scoop and residential schools. And white people have made careers managing the files of indigenous children who are being taken from their families. All the money that gets used in these ventures could use to actually support families and keep them together in indigenous communities. But the racism says no white people get to benefit and everybody else gets to be administered while they get paid and their families get supported. So the difficult conversation for me is racism isn't about some bad feelings inside somebody's hearts, it's about power. And when you keep power away from other people, there's more for you and your people.

MG: Just before I let you go, the temptation is to say that this moment changes everything. And people would say that in the wake of historic elections, they might say it in the wake of the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, they might say, in the wake of Samia tT's death in Toronto. Do you see this moment as being any different?

DESMOND COLE: I watched a police station burned down in the United States, in Minneapolis, and I have to tell you, I don't know if I thought I would see that in my lifetime. And it took that to bring charges against a murderer, a murderer that people watched on camera. a murderer that wasn't charged until a police station burned down. And so in this moment, that symbol of that police station on fire for me, I'm not going to be ashamed of it and I'm not going to tell people oh don't respond violently. That flame was a hope and a flame inside of my own heart and many black people's hearts, because we are allowed to defend ourselves. We are allowed to fight back and we have to build on this one moment after 400 years of oppression is not going to do it, but we have to continue to build on this. And yes, the answer for the police is to stop policing and to start supporting and caring and to send other people like we're sending people with a gun to somebody who's in crisis. So, I mean, if people want to pretend that that's a rational response, there's still a lot of work to do.

MG: Desmond Cole, good to speak with you. Thank you.

DESMOND COLE: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Desmond Cole, Toronto activist and journalist. He is the author of the book The Skin We're In: A Year of Black Resistance and Power. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's address to Canadians on Friday about the situation in the United States mentioned anti-black racism, anti-Asian racism. Canada's indigenous community is wondering why their situation was left out of that address. Myra Tait is a member of the Berens River First Nation in Manitoba and instructor of indigenous justice issues at the University of Winnipeg. Myra, good morning to you.

MYRA TAIT: Good morning.

MG: How did you feel when you listened to the prime minister on Friday?

MYRA TAIT: Well, I have to admit, I wasn't actually listening to that one, but I did read about it. And the absence and the silence of being noted in a national address is simply one of many, many, many instances in over 150 years of history of this country. We are rendered invisible. And I think that the huge difference in why things have not changed in Canada and arguably for the United States as well, is that Aboriginal people, Indigenous people, are largely invisible, not only in national addresses like that, but in the way that policy is formed. Now back in 1969, the senior, Pierre Elliott Trudeau talked about the Indian problem and how he was going to deal with that, and that was simply by legislating us out of existence. Canada has entrenched racism since before Confederation. Aboriginal women couldn't vote. Aboriginal people couldn't own land. Aboriginal people were relegated, as we know, through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. We're relegated to essentially prisoner of war camps on their own reserves by virtue of the past system, which I note was not a legal mechanism, but it sure has the force of the law behind it.

MG: What about, you mentioned the law. What about policing? We're talking a lot about policing in the United States and here in Canada when it comes to black communities. What about policing when it comes to indigenous communities?

MYRA TAIT: Well, it's interesting that, you know, back in the early 90s, Manitoba had an Aboriginal justice inquiry which was followed by the implementation commission. And then those two events book ended RCAP, the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. And policing certainly was the focus of those. AJI and AJIC commissions. When you walk down the street in Winnipeg and I note that Winnipeg has the highest indigenous population of any urban centre in Canada and continues to, when you walk down the street and can be shot dead by police for just being there and this was what happened to JJ Harper in one of the events that set off the AJI, then we know we have a problem. But the problem goes back to the assumption of this cultural superiority that became entrenched in law. Policing is a huge part of that. If you assume that Aboriginal people are less than and that they need to be dealt with like the former Prime Minister Trudeau, that we're a problem then anything is fair game to put us in our place. And policing is one of the tools that's used. Now, I have to say, we have been long advocates of self-determination. So we wouldn't have our own system of policing and of governance and we certainly did prior to settlement. So policing is not necessarily the issue, it's the assumption of the superiority that power can be used to make sure that we are kept in our place.

MG: Just in the last minute or so that we have, there are hard conversations that are happening in the United States and here in Canada about race and racism. And Desmond Cole was just saying that we need to have those hard conversations, that we've avoided them. Do you see those happening now?

MYRA TAIT: You know, I think I have some optimism. I think the TRC in particular has brought some of these discussions to the forefront. But I have to say that I am often appalled by the profound ignorance of our leadership and I don't simply mean government, but those who run corporations, lawyers, judges, law firms, businesses. If those people who are in positions of power and able to influence as Desmond points out, able to influence policy, if they have failed to educate themselves, then we're not going to see a lot of change. But I think the TRC has really brought to the forefront the fact of Canada's history and that gives me some hope that understanding how we got here is part of moving on.

MG: I'll take your optimism. Myra, it's good to speak with you. I appreciate it. Thank you.

MYRA TAIT: You're welcome.

MG: Myra Tait is a member of the Berens River First Nation in Manitoba, An instructor as well of indigenous justice issues at the University of Winnipeg. If you have any reaction to what's been happening, yes, in the United States, but here in Canada over this weekend and more, we'd love to hear from you. You can reach us on the website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the contact link. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. You can email us thecurrent@cbc.ca. Are we having those difficult conversations, the gut check conversations about race or are we looking to the United States and perhaps not having them here? You can let us know at cbc.ca/thecurrent. Your regional update is next. Then it's one thing to talk about a crisis in Canada's long term care homes from the outside, from the inside, it's a different view altogether. The inside is where Ryan Hicks has been for the past five weeks, working in a long term care home hit hard by COVID-19. We'll find out why he thinks the people in charge need to get closer to what is really going on. His story coming up in a few minutes. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One.

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Faced with coronavirus misinformation, Twitter was 'forced' to start fact-checking Trump, says media scholar

Guests: Siva Vaidhyanathan

MG: Hi, I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. As police in cities across the United States crackdown on protesters, the U.S. president has been following closely on Twitter. He praised the work of law enforcement. He's denounced protesters as thugs and anarchists. He's denounced the media as enemies of the people. Throughout his election campaign and presidency, Donald Trump has used Twitter to speak directly to his supporters and the rest of the world. But now he finds himself in conflict with the very platforms that helped fuel his rise. Siva Vaidyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. Siva, good morning.

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Good morning.

MG: You're in Charlottesville. This is the site of the white supremacist rally back in 2017. How are you doing and what's the mood been like in your town over the weekend?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: You know, my town since 2017 has undergone a tremendous awakening and transformation where we've, I think, finally started to publicly confront our own history of white supremacy, our own history of the exclusion of African-Americans from any levers of power and the way we've destroyed their neighbourhoods over many decades. But we are so deeply connected to the rest of the country this last week, as so many cities around the United States are are joining in this awakening and, you know, and seething with historical resentment. So it's a very sensitive time in our country right now and it's one of those moments where things could get remarkably bad, very fast, or could start on the road to serious improvement.

MG: In that sensitive time, what role do you think the social media posts of the U.S. president have had in influencing how people are feeling and what they're doing?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Yeah, I mean, they've done no good for anyone, right? He's shown time and time again. The president shown time and time again that his instinct is to lash out at anyone who might question his judgment, his authority, his record. And there's nothing but that these days. He seems to be failing on every front, and so his tweets get angrier, more defensive — and, in fact, more offensive. He has consistently over the past few weeks called for state violence in some form or another against American citizens. This is something that is unprecedented amongst American presidents, for the most part, at least so publicly. You know, we know President Nixon harboured such desires, but the full record only came out decades later, yeah.

MG: Well President Nixon didn't have Twitter. Donald Trump has had Twitter. But the relationship with those.

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: President Nixon also had someself-control and this president doesn't seem to have that.

MG: The relationship that Donald Trump has with Twitter is an interesting one because he has used it as a bully pulpit, but it's not the safe space perhaps now that it was for him even six months ago. When did this relationship start to break apart?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Yeah I think very recently. So, you know, Twitter has had very clear rules that limit what you and I can express on Twitter, and Facebook has the same set of rules — rules that basically say if you promote or celebrate or champion violence, your tweet will be removed and you risk having your account cancelled if you repeatedly engage in that behaviour. And we've seen hundreds of right-wing and left-wing activists suffer from those sorts of penalties to greater and lesser degrees. The president of the United States has always been above that level of scrutiny from Twitter. And Twitter's officials have been very clear about the fact that they consider all of his tweets to be newsworthy and therefore they have refused to treat Trump — or Narendra Modi in India, or Rodrigo Duterte in Philippines or Boris Johnson in the U.K. — as a regular Twitter user and in fact, have decided that heads of state will have their own set of rules, which basically have been until now, no rules.

MG: So why did that change? Because it's not just Twitter, put a factcheck label next to his tweet about mail-in voting, but then you're talking about glorifying violence in the tweets, in the wake of the death of a man in Minneapolis, was talking about looting leading to shooting, and then Twitter said that this tweet glorified violence and put a shield kind of around it. What changed?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: I think what changed was the pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic has forced Facebook and Twitter and Google, which, of course, runs YouTube, to take more seriously the direct threat of misinformation. The fact that you can have misinformation about a public health emergency and very quickly contribute to the demise of hundreds of thousands of people raises the stakes. Disinformation and fighting disinformation, once we have a global pandemic, is no longer merely a political matter — something that might affect an election and have some downstream effects, but, in fact, can have the direct effects on people's lives. So in the past few months, all of these services have re-examined their approach to how they're going to scour for misinformation and disinformation — and taken much more seriously the misinformation, disinformation and hatred coming from Donald Trump, because Donald Trump has explicitly advocated for dangerous, misleading things like the inappropriate use of certain pharmaceuticals to treat coronavirus symptoms. And in one case, advocating internal use of disinfectants to, you know, I mean, just crazy stuff. Dangerous stuff. And there is a real concern that his true believers will follow his medical advice. So once you've done that, you're taking extra scrutiny, and that extended also given that we have this massively important election in the fall, that scrutiny has extended to information and misinformation about voting. Knowing that in 2016 and in 2018, the social media platforms were flooded by misinformation about how and when one could vote and lots of rumours about voting improprieties that turned out not to be true, but all of which affected the election. So the stakes are much higher.

MG: Well, the tweets get fact checked, but they're still up on Facebook. And Facebook has taken this very different approach to these posts that might be inaccurate or otherwise would violate terms of service. Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, was speaking on CNBC last week, saying that he doesn't think social media companies should be the arbiters of truth. Have a listen to what he said.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know, we had a case recently where the Brazilian president was saying that hydroxychloroquine was proven by scientists to be safe and we had to make the difficult decision of taking that down, even though we want to provide as much voices as possible. So there are lines and we will enforce them. But I think in general, you want to give as wide of a voice as possible and I think you want to have a special deference to political speech.

MG: So, Siva, why is Twitter going one way, but Facebook going a different way?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Yeah, I think it's because Mark Zuckerberg has a close personal relationship with Donald Trump at this point. He is either terrified of Donald Trump or terrified of the next administration putting some sort of regulatory restricture on Facebook in a way that would be uncomfortable.

MG: What would he be concerned about when it comes to regulation?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Well, you know, that's what's interesting. There doesn't seem to be any prospect of the sort of regulation that would actually threaten Facebook's business. I think he just doesn't want the conversation to even come up in a serious way. So he's trying his best to keep politicians in general happy. And that's not just Trump, but it is Modi and Duterte and Bolsonaro. You know, those are all very important patrons of Facebook and people who rely on Facebook to spread their illiberal political views. So it's one of those situations where I think the very fact that Trump is working Mark Zuckerberg constantly — on the phone with him, having him to the White House for dinner. These things have an effect where Zuckerberg basically has decided that he can pretend to be hands off. Meanwhile, his service is promoting — actively promoting — Trump's messages, no matter how destructive or dangerous those messages are. Now, when he says and he said to the U.S. Congress, he testified before Congress that if the president of the United States or any politician promotes violence, as Trump has a number of times this week, that message would immediately be taken down, he lied when he said that the Congress. He is not interested in taking it down if that message comes from Donald Trump. He might rein in Bolsonaro on occasion. He refuses to rein in Donald Trump.

MG: Just in the last few seconds that we have, given what Facebook was involved in in the last U.S. election — Mark Zuckerberg initially dismissed the idea of, you know, Russian interference as a pretty, pretty crazy idea. Turned out that it wasn't a pretty crazy idea; that it was happening. What do you think is likely to happen on social media platforms going into the fall election?

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Oh, nothing good. I mean, really nothing.

MG: That doesn't sound optimistic.

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Not at all. Nothing has changed in any measurable way. Twitter has decided to take Donald Trump's specific tweets to task in certain circumstances. That's not going to have a macro effect on the spread of disinformation and confusion, which is really the goal here on Twitter and then on Facebook. And remember, for every Twitter user in the world, there are eight Facebook users. Facebook has 2.5 billion people. Facebook has 230 million American regular users, as opposed to 30 million American regulars for Twitter. Facebook is where the game is. Facebook amplifies things that tgenerate strong emotion like hate speech, like calls to violence, like conspiracy theories, all of which Donald Trump and his supporters traffic in. So things are going to be worse, and certainly not better than in 2016.

MG: Siva, good to speak with you. Thank you.

SIVA VAIDYANATHAN: Thank you.

MG: Siva Vaidyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. We did reach out to Facebook and Twitter for comment. Twitter declined and we're waiting to hear back from Facebook.

Your letters about long-term care homes

Guests: Karin Marley

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio One. I'm Matt Galloway. We've been talking a lot about the appalling conditions in several long term care homes in Ontario and Quebec. As you can imagine, we've received a lot of feedback from listeners across this country. Senior producer Karin Marley is here with a few of your letters. Karin, good morning.

KARIN MARLEY: Good morning.

MG: This is such a personal issue for so many Canadians.

KARIN MARLEY: We definitely got a lot of mail with personal stories. Let's start with Melissa Wilson writing from Guelph, Ontario. She shared a story about a friend's aunt who lived in a large publicly run home in Quebec. She writes, It felt necessary to hire a private caregiver to help on a daily basis while the regular staff tried to give good care. They only had seven minutes per patient in the morning to get our resident to the washroom, bathed and dressed. Brushing teeth wasn't considered a necessity. If my friend hadn't had the time to visit her aunt on a very regular basis or had the income to hire someone, the care given wouldn't have been sufficient.

MG: Similar tale from Heather de Veber in Toronto. The only reason my mom had a bit of pleasure in her long term care place was that we were lucky enough to hire someone to help her talk with her, do her laundry, take her to the main room to have tea, sit down with her at a meal. It was so depressing otherwise. The government needs to spend money immediately to start the fix right away.

KARIN MARLEY: Van Buchanan from Victoria ended up in a nursing home for rehab after breaking a kneecap and writes, Families never really see the real thing as they visit for an hour or two once a week. Patients don't complain. Why? Fear of retribution or they're simply resigned to their situation. Age and lack of communication skills account for most of the silences. Also, most are women of a certain age, an era where it wasn't polite or ladylike to complain. The staff, as wonderful as they were, were run off their feet. For instance, every morning at seven o'clock, my care aide would come into the room, wake us up, remove the adult diapers of two of my roommates, wash up those poor souls while I wheeled myself into the bathroom for a sponge bath. Suffice it to say, the place was understaffed and overworked. I was one of the very rare lucky ones. I knew I was getting out.

MG: Wanda Thomas Bernard of East Preston, Nova Scotia, Senator Bernard, writes, My own personal feelings about long term care were so strong that when my husband was facing a life threatening health crisis 17 years ago, followed by some extreme racism in the neighbourhood of Nova Scotia, where we lived at the time. We made some major decisions about our own end of life care. We built a totally accessible home in a black community so that we could have peace, safety and space for a live in caregiver in the future should such care be necessary. As I listened to your program today, I revisited the decision we made so many years ago and recognised the incredible privilege we had to make such changes in our lives. Too many Canadians have no options, and we must do all that we can to ensure that some of our most vulnerable citizens are able to live their final years in dignity.

KARIN MARLEY: And finally, this one comes to us from Lorna Weigand of Scarborough, Ontario. I'm 76, and like many others, I hope I will not have to go to a long term care facility. However, my mother, who had a form of dementia, spent almost 20 years in a nursing home near Ottawa. One thing I remember was the sense of community because many staff and other residents were known to my family. I wonder if we could build nursing homes as more a part of our neighbourhoods if we had a nursing home near the local school with a shared arden. Would this not help create a sense of community oversight? We need to share ideas about nursing and Long-Term Care facilities that are working. I'm sure there are some good models, models where the smell of great food wafts through the building before lunch, where bread is baked fresh, where residents are taken out to the garden daily. We could start to focus on what future homes should look like.

MG: Thanks for all your letters. And thank you, Karin, for helping read through them.

KARIN MARLEY: Thank you.

MG: Karin Marley, senior producer of The Current. If you want to keep this conversation going, it feels, as we've been saying with our guests, like when we get out of this pandemic, this will be one of the things that we need to seriously come to terms with. You can email us from the website, go to cbc.ca/thecurrent. Click on the Contact link. If you're on Twitter, you can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Maybe you're on Facebook and if so, you can leave a comment on our Facebook page there. Just look for The Current CBC.

Assistant personal support worker calls on Quebec’s premier to join him on the front lines of a long term care home in Montreal

Guests: Ryan Hicks

MG: Speaking of letters, take a listen to this. It's written to the premier of Quebec, Francois Legault from someone who's been working in a long term care home. "If you joined us, you would see that our seniors are currently receiving the bare minimum level of care. You could help wash a resident's hair, hair that has not been washed in weeks. You would hear how we try to console and reassure a distraught resident who's just received a positive COVID-19 diagnosis." Ryan Hicks is the author of that open letter. He's calling on the Quebec premier to join the staff at a long term care home in Montreal that's been hit hard by the coronavirus. Ryan Hicks is working there as an assistant personal support worker during the pandemic. He's also a law student at McGill University and a former CBC journalist. Ryan, good morning.

RYAN HICKS: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Why did you write this letter to Premier Legault?

RYAN HICKS: I mean, I wrote this letter after five weeks of seeing, you know, what you mentioned, this basic minimum standard of care. And what that means is, you know, residents simply being fed, getting a sponge bath in bed. Little to no activities. Yes, there are nurses bringing medications and there are doctors, but other than that, nothing is going on. No rehab, no activities and I could just see, I can see day after day a sense of, you know, desperation, despair, worry. And, you know, Matt, it's really what has gone on in Montreal in these homes is a national disgrace. And I really felt like the premier needs to see it to really believe it. And in order to really change elder care and deal with this crisis in the most appropriate way, in the most patient centred way, he needs to feel it and then take that outrage to fuel change.

MG: Why did you, you're a law student, why did you decide that you wanted to go and work in health care during this pandemic?

RYAN HICKS: So, I mean, I have grandparents who lived the last years of their life in a nursing home. So I understood kind of in my head the importance of this care. And when the premier asked Quebecers back in April about he was asking really anybody Matt, you don't even have to have a health care experience to help because the situation was so dire. You know, I came across a situation where my summer job at the law firm I was supposed to work for was delayed till mid-June. So I said, you know, OK, like I'll step up.

MG: What was your first day like?

RYAN HICKS: Oh I mean, it was shocking because on a good day before the pandemic, these facilities in Montreal are difficult places to be. People have to remember that because there's such an array of dementia. Right. And so you compound that with the effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, which is a complete disruption to the elder care system. And what I mean by that is shortage of staff. Staff are sick. Patients are being moved around the facility based on whether they are positive and negative and not enough staff to take care of them. So me and this patient that I was assigned to we walked into this one part of the floor where we had to take care of 14 patients. On the other side the patient attendant and the assistant had to take care of 22, and me and her for eight hours were just changing, feeding and doing some social interaction. And I was physically, mentally, emotionally exhausted. My legs were so sore from being on my feet for eight hours.

MG: I was gonna say, what's the mood like of the staff? We've heard from staff in long term care homes. They're doing extraordinary work, but they're exhausted. What's the mood like in the home that you're working in?

RYAN HICKS: People need to remember a lot of these staff have seen the residents. They're residents that they have worked with and cared for day after day die. And we're not talking one or two people, we're talking many, many of their residents die and they are overworked. And those who have not been sick and have stayed around have worked many, many days. I've heard of people working 30 days without taking a day off. So, you know, there's no end in sight right now. No one has presented to the residents or the staff, OK, what is the plan moving forward? How is this sustainable? Because these seniors have been locked inside these residences for 11 weeks and they, people aren't getting physio that they need. So there just seems to be no end in sight and at a certain point, there needs to be some adaptation to this new reality, right?

MG: What happens in the home that you're working in when someone tests positive for COVID-19?

RYAN HICKS: So when someone tests positive for COVID-19, I mean, they're told by, they're informed by a doctor. And usually what happens and so what I've had to do, which was really difficult, is so actually one time I came to work at 7:30 in the morning and went to see this resident. She was crying. I could hear her out of the through out in the hallway. I could hear she was crying in her bedroom. I go in and I ask her what's wrong and you know, what happened? She said, I tested positive for COVID. And so she needed some counselling. Right? She needed some reassurance and it really goes to the mental health element that is being ignored with respect to the residents. And then, you know, I had to take this red, it's kind of like a duct tape. And, you know, that sound that duct tape makes when you peel it off and I had to peel it off, put a huge X with the tape outside her door and tape around the door. And this is what you do for all the rooms and all the patients that test positive, because it needs to be extremely clear that this is a positive patient. But while I had to do that, she is bawling and she knows what I'm doing.

MG: You wrote in the letter that after 11 weeks of the crisis repeating it's gonna be all right, it starts to lose its punch.

RYAN HICKS: Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, there has been I can't say to a patient when they're going to be able to have, you know, free flowing visits from their loved ones or when they're going to be able to go outside and breathe fresh air. And so those kinds of conversations that I have had to have are conversations that I really think if the premier himself was there and experienced what that felt like that would change the way he is viewing this crisis and the way he approaches elder care.

MG: Now he has people who would be advising him. I mean, reports have come out, whether it's staff reports or the report from the military have come out and said this is what's going on. What would being in the home do differently, do you think?

RYAN HICKS: I mean, you know, I believe, you know when I was a reporter, I was a TV reporter and I do believe in the power of that visual image. And we don't have a lot of images coming out of these homes from the inside. And but for even more importantly, it does come back to the feeling, because when you feel something, when you feel so strongly about something, so when he you know, if he went and he spoke to these residents and he saw the red tape and he saw also just the state of the facility, because I'm in a facility that's a very old facility where in some places the paint is coming off of the wall, like that feeling you can harness that feeling. And it can only make you a better leader.

MG: Have you had any response from the premier or the premier's office to your offer to spend a day on the front lines at the long-term care home?

RYAN HICKS: So I know they have it. That's it. I know they have it.

MG: Do you have any idea? I mean, do you think as a politician that he would do something like that?

RYAN HICKS: You know, I covered Francois Legault for three years and it's hard to say. Right? Because sometimes politicians, especially leaders, don't like to be told how they should potentially do their job.

MG: But this has changed you. Right? I mean, you're a different person and the way that you see this is completely different from when you went in there.

RYAN HICKS: Oh, yeah because, I mean, you know, I just think about the residents and the people I know, right? Because now I've been there for I'm going into my sixth week now and I'm doing this full time. And, you know, I know names. I know faces. They know me. And I've also seen the beauty of what has, I know this is a weird thing to say maybe, but there is a certain beauty in the fact that all of these strangers, these volunteer workers, the soldiers and the staff who are there, that these people have come together in this time where some of our most vulnerable need us the most. Like there is a certain beauty in that.

MG: Good on you for doing what you're doing. And we will keep an ear out and an eye out for the response from the premier of Ontario.. Quebec. Ontario could do with that as well. Ryan, it's good to speak with you. Thank you.

RYAN HICKS: Sure. No problem. Thanks, Matt.

MG: Ryan Hicks, a law student, McGill University. He's working as an assistant personal support worker at a long term care home in Montreal and has extended through an open letter, an invitation to the premier of Quebec to spend a day at the long term care home that he is working in.

Closing with Tom Power

Guests: Tom Power

MG: That is The Current for this Monday. Coming up next on your CBC Radio One, it's Q. Tom Power is the host. Good morning, Tom.

TOM POWER: Hi, Matt. How are you?

MG: I'm all right. How was your weekend?

TOM POWER: Not too bad. You know, we spent the weekend here on Q sort of retooling the show. On Friday, I would have said to listeners that we were going to have Kathleen Edwards as sort of the lead part of the show today, but, you know, obviously we made some changes. We're retooling the show. The show opens up today with a really powerful piece of music from the Toronto rapper TOBi, who has a song he recorded months ago about systemic violence against black people. That has certainly a new relevance right now. So we're gong to talk to TOBi about that song. We're going to talk to our good friend Shad about that song. He has a verse on it as well. So I'm excited to hear what's about to happen.

MG: We'll listen for that. That's the conversation that people are having right now. Tom, thank you.

TOM POWER: Thank you, Matt.

MG: Tom Power, host of Q. That's up next on CBC Radio One. That's The Current for today. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. We'll talk to you tomorrow.

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June 1, 2020 episode transcript

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